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10.01.2011

Supernatural

First, let me share you a piece of personal history.

During my younger years my family looked to the radio as one of the primary source of home entertainment next to the black-n-white TV. I grew up in the late 80's (up to mid-90's) watching Knight Rider, Macgyver and Air Wolf, reading my older sister's monthly issues of National Geographic Magazine (she earned her subscription via my father's work) and the locally-published comics like Funny Komiks and Ninja Comix, and last but not the least---listen to the radio. We've had a daily dose of music via FM but my family bonded well by listening to late Kuya Ernie Baron's Knowledge Power via the AM station DZMM. Aside from that, my father and I loved to listen to radio coverage of PBA games (local basketball games can only be viewed via cable tv in the Visayas area, and we could not afford it being below the middle class) and DZRH's Gabi ng Lagim horror fest series, aired weeknights at 8:00 pm. In the province, our childhood fantasies and nightmares were heavily influenced by fantastic tales of the supernatural as told by our grand folks and the popular media (I came from the oldest province in the country, a ride away from Capiz and stories of aswangs, duwendes, and manananggals are staple stories in the dining table). And when it came to the unexplained stories (real or imagined) nothing beats the feeling of supernatural experience by listening to Jaime Licauco's Inner Mind on Radio segment via DZMM.

This early fascination with Jaime Licauco and his field of the supernatural proved useful when I encountered his book "From Profound to the Profane" originally published in 2009. Even if I don't believe in everything he writes and preaches (like the idea of Reincarnation and past lives), he remains the most sensible and entertaining expert when it comes to the realm of the unseen and the unexplained.

And this caution is probably the best that I can give to the uninitiated reader attempting to read his books. No doubt his articles are very entertaining streamlined with the popular media as his topics ranges from the controversial Gnostic Gospels of Mary Magdalene and Judas Iscariot; the past lives of Jesus Christ; Spirit Guides and physical encounters with other spirits like succubus and incubus; Residual energy of a dead person and the spiritual signature left in an ukay-ukay shirt (a cautionary topic for lovers of ukay-ukay goods); the stuff common Sci Fi readers love like telekinesis, bilocation, teleportation and its irrevocable connection with Quantum Mechanics; Aliens among us; Karma and old/rehashed ideas of the popular book The Secret; Carl Jung's Synchronicity Theory (this topic is my favorite!); every woman's source of romantic fantasy---Soulmates; and every man's source of sexual fantasy---the exact location of the Graffenberg Spot (G-Spot). If you don't find any of these topics entertaining then you belonged in a different planet.

But then again, I saw these topics mainly as source of entertainment and looking to open my mind and challenge my beliefs are just secondary. The former reason is how i would like to recommend this book. It entertains.

Hi Narj! We're happy to let you know that we've included The Book Tripper's Hideout in the list of Pinoy book blogs at Read Philippines.com. We'd love to have you join our fast-growing community of Pinoy readers!